Building in the open

We make games we'd want to play, and we'd rather show our work than hide it. So this is the start of the RookTKO devlog — a place to share what we're building, why we're making the calls we're making, and what we're learning along the way.

What RookTKO is

We're a small, independent studio. No publisher breathing down our necks, no quarterly roadmap dictated by a spreadsheet. That independence is the whole point: it's what lets us ship games that respect your time, your money, and your intelligence, or at least we try.

Right now our focus is GemCore — a chaotic fusion of bullet-heaven and strategic deck-building with a frankly unreasonable amount of entertainment per run.

What this devlog is for

A few things we want this space to do:

• Show the process. Prototypes, dead ends, the systems that almost worked. Game development is mostly the parts you don't see in a trailer.
• Explain the decisions. When we make a call — about pricing, about a mechanic, about what we will and won't do to monetize — we'll tell you why.
• Stay in touch. Wishlists and Discord pings are great, but a devlog lets us write at length when something deserves it.

What's next

GemCore is heading toward early access, and we'll have a lot to say about that — how we're pricing it, what "early access" actually means to us, and how you can shape it. RNR is further behind but very much alive.

If you want the short version of everything we believe, it's on the rest of this site: fair, DRM-free, built for players. The long version starts here.

See you in the next one.